Sitting alone in his bedroom, 12-year-old Nick Robbins peered out the window. He saw a group of older neighborhood kids hanging out by the pond. What were they up to? Was he missing out on something? He had to find out.
Nick’s family often moved around Iowa and Illinois because of his dad’s job. Always the new kid in town, Nick struggled with social anxiety but craved a sense of belonging. He mustered the courage to approach the teens behind his house.
“Hey, come over here,” said one kid. Nick saw they were smoking marijuana and drinking. They invited him to join.
From then on, Nick depended on weed to feel comfortable in social situations. Wherever his family moved, he could always find friends who did drugs. Smoking helped him relax—and feel accepted. But pot also changed his personality in negative ways and led him to risky behaviors.
Throughout high school, Nick earned good grades and lettered in wrestling. But he also excelled at getting in trouble. Nick’s parents were concerned about his influence on their younger children, and the tension in the home continued to grow. Finally, his parents issued an ultimatum: If he wanted to live under their roof, he had to live by their rules. Nick moved out at 15.
A HUNGER FOR HOPE
Nick moved two hours away to live with an aunt and uncle for a short time. Then he couch-surfed with friends and lived in his car. He quit school and moved into a trailer in Iowa with two other teens who had dropped out. He hardly knew how to cook or pay bills. One year he rationed a plate of homemade Christmas cookies to last him a week, eating half a cookie as a meal.
At his young age, Nick had a hard time finding full-time work. He grew depressed and isolated, sometimes sleeping 14 hours a day. That was better than being awake and feeling hungry. When he did leave the house, he usually ended up at parties or getting into fights.
Looking back, Nick says, “I couldn't explain how I was feeling. … Mental health wasn’t a topic back then that anybody talked about. Not understanding why I was struggling made it even more difficult.”
At 17, Nick robbed a loan store twice, and the second time, he was quickly caught and arrested. The cops found a kitchen knife in his pocket. Soon he was facing two 10-year sentences for armed robbery. All Nick could think was, At least in jail I’ll have food and a place to live.
GIVING UP THE FIGHT
Nick arrived in prison a broken young man with no self-worth or direction. He did a few stints in solitary confinement and got time added to his sentence for misconduct.
“I would say my struggles were my only focus back then,” says Nick.
Looking for ways to shorten his incarceration, Nick joined an intensive Prison Fellowship® program. He knew about God because his parents had taken him to church as a child. But what Nick didn’t know was that God was working on his heart, even years later in prison.
The intensive, yearlong program Nick joined guides people to replace criminal thinking and behaviors with renewed purpose and biblically based life principles.
Then, Nick was invited to a prison evangelistic event. Although he was reluctant to attend, he went.
“I realized that I had never read the Word and never truly worshipped God before,” says Nick. He says he remembered the speaker declaring, “There is a man here today who needs to lay down his life.”
In that moment, Nick tried to argue with God.
“I was angry,” says Nick. “Asking God in was like admitting that I was weak. At that point I just started weeping, and I knew when I stood up, I was giving it all up.”
[Nick] says he remembered the speaker declaring, ‘There is a man here today who needs to lay down his life.’
COMMUNITY OF CHANGE
At that worship service, Nick made the decision to follow Jesus. He sought opportunities to grow in his faith and be mentored by other believers.
When Nick first enrolled in the intensive Prison Fellowship program, he struggled to follow the schedule and embrace the long, challenging classes, all while gaining a reputation for disrespecting officers. A few months into program, he quit.
But later, Nick couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing.
“I couldn’t sleep, I felt sick to my stomach, and it just became so clear to me that I was not only standing in my way of my own faith and relationship with the Lord. Now I'm standing in the way of others,” says Nick.
He sought opportunities to grow in his faith and be mentored by other believers.
SECOND CHANCES
At the urging of a friend, Nick reenrolled in the program. His second try was different.
“When I went back, my focus was on me just growing up and shutting my mouth and learning, and [thinking], ‘I don't care if you feel uncomfortable, Nick, you're going to be uncomfortable wherever you’re at. It’s time to just plant roots, stick to something, and make it,’” Nick says.
With the help of compassionate staff, Prison Fellowship created the environment and supplied the tools for Nick to succeed. His fellow participants walked alongside each other to build a community conducive to change. Together, they did the hard work of learning to think and act in a new way.
As a community, they also held one another accountable. Nick was challenged daily to live out his values as a follower of Christ.
“It was such a shift where I said, ‘I’m going to stop living for today,’” Nick recalls. “I’m going to start living for the person I want to be once I get out.”
He adds, “I just kept having volunteers and staff coming up and saying, ‘Hey, we believe in you. We know you're going to have a better future.’ And they just kept telling me that until one day I believed.”
A PLACE TO BELONG
Before leaving prison, Nick completed Prison Fellowship’s program. He also earned his GED diploma. In August 2007, after 7 1/2 years inside, he paroled to his parents’ home in Branson, Missouri.
Finding work proved to be a challenge for Nick. One employer after another declined to hire him or ignored his applications entirely. Without a car, he struggled to get around town. As one of 80 million Americans with a criminal record, he knew his experience wasn’t unique—but the journey to reintegrate sometimes felt lonely. He had left prison with a transformed heart and longed for a chance to demonstrate that change in his community.
After hearing Nick’s testimony, someone connected him with the head of counseling at a Christ-centered residential treatment agency. There, Nick took a role leading the residents through community service projects and other daily activities. The job was less than a mile from his house. The structure of the program suited him—and the youth there reminded him of his younger self.
When he wasn’t working, Nick sometimes helped his brother practice fighting for Amateur MMA competitions—a healthy outlet compared to the fighting he once did on the streets. But the hobby led to a few trips to the chiropractor.
That’s where he made a friend he didn’t expect.
He had left prison with a transformed heart and longed for a chance to demonstrate that change in his community.
THE WAY BACK HOME
Kelly, the woman working at the front desk, struck up a conversation with Nick. She realized she knew his family and learned he’d recently come home from prison. Kelly offered some of her own story, too: She was recently divorced and had two young sons.
Soon, they went out for Nick’s birthday and began a friendship that eventually blossomed into more. The next November, Nick and Kelly were married.
Over the years, Nick has stayed involved in his church community with his family. He has worked for several organizations he admires, all with the purpose of serving people with stories like his own.
In 2016 he founded Returning Home, a reentry center in Springdale, Arkansas, for men and women with a criminal history. He worked to partner with multiple organizations and provide residents with the resources they need, like mental health counseling and job placement services. Focusing on case management and life-skills programming, Returning Home also partners with an organization that runs a 70-bed transitional facility for men returning from prison, as well as a residential program that serves as an alternative to incarceration.
Nick previously volunteered on the criminal justice coordinating committee for Washington County, working with judges, the sheriff’s department, and other community leaders to improve best practices at the county level.
Today, Nick serves as CEO of Returning Home. He has big dreams for Arkansas, and he’s bringing others alongside him to see restoration take root—starting with his own community.
“We can't just sit and complain that people are making poor decisions if we’re unwilling to come alongside them to teach them that they have hope for a different life,” says Nick. “At some point you have to be a part of that healing process. … We’ve got to step up and stop holding people back.”
Nick has big dreams for Arkansas, and he’s bringing others alongside him to see restoration take root—starting with his own community.